Inaction, silencing, and ignorance in disaster prevention: the case of Rıza Bey Apartment collapse in the earthquake in Turkey

Purpose This article examines the inaction, silencing and ignorance in ex ante disasters whilst conducting a case study analysis of the Izmir/Samos earthquake, a 6.6 Mw (moment magnitude) earthquake that occurred at a depth of 14.9 km from the ground on 30 October 2020 at 2:51 PM. The 8-floor Riza Bey Apartment in Bayrakli/Izmir was demolished in the earthquake approximately 100 km from the epicenter. After the earthquake, several lawsuits started to conduct investigations on an apartment basis. Focusing on the causes of disasters in engaging with adoptive thinking in disasters, the current article posits the following research question: what are the ex ante socio-technical dynamics and causes of fatality in disasters? Design/methodology/approach The methodological tools and advice related to disaster prevention in ex ante disasters originate from the actor network theory (ANT). Although ANT probes complex and dynamic multiplicities in disaster prevention management, this may be unsatisfactory for conceptualizing and operationalizing a disaster, as it is heavily reliant on discerning between humans and non-humans. Data were gathered (February 2021–February 2022) from 15 face-to-face interviews, 2 phone interviews, official documents, archival records, open-sourced public interviews, political speeches, newspaper articles, public reports, expert reports stories, videos, legal transcriptions and photographs. Additionally, data were gathered from the commission minutes officially published on the government website. Findings This article revealed the confusion of authority between the local and central governments and the gap between institutions and citizens in understanding and implementing the disaster prevention laws and regulations. It found that the causes of disasters beyond any dichotomies, such as surface versus site and ground versus grounded, rely not only on the technical roles of disaster prevention but also the non-technical roles assigned to it. Research limitations/implications Since the lawsuit has been in continuation, the process is still alive, and data gathering is limited to the litigation conditions of public servants in terms of sharing information. Since many of the flat owners died, it is difficult to access information on the apartment meetings to learn more about the resistance of flat owners against urban transformation and the possibility of ignoring or hiding the risk assessment report. Practical implications Disaster prevention is such a complex process which generates complex adaptation mechanisms (physical, behavioral, biological, cognitive through training, learning and experiencing). Also, there is a need to understand the scale of adaptive behavior and its function to improve adoptive mechanisms. With a transdisciplinary focus, each discipline needs to embrace one another's calculation and calculative practices while they measure, observe, analyze and implement risk and uncertainties. Social implications It is hard to prevent disasters without knowing the flow of root relations between actors and elements that are in movement with different directions, forms and motions. These unbalanced, uneven and endless root relationships between actors' movements create a constant state of tension of organizing, recording, auditing, quantifying, computing, mapping (geology, Earth information system and micro-zonation), budgeting, bookkeeping, measuring, performance, regulating, controlling, monitoring and auditing with all the numbers and data. Originality/value There is a gap in the literature in terms of the interaction between accounts and institutions in ex ante disaster.